What happened in 2007?On July 11, 2007 Warner Brothers released the
movie based upon Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix, and 10 days
later on July 21, the last book in the series, entitled Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published.

This, along with the
10th anniversary of the publication of Book 1 on June 27th, created the
"perfect storm" for summations of the Potter phenomenon, goodbyes
to Harry, and tell-all interviews with author J.K. Rowling.

In October, Rowling made her first tour of North America in seven years,
stopping in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Toronto.

On December 13, a copy of The Tales of Beedle the
Bard, one of only seven copies in existence, was auctioned
for charity. The winning bidder was online retail giant Amazon.com with
a bid of £1.95 million ($3,985,410 U.S.). Four days later Rowling
was the very special guest of The Leaky Cauldron's PotterCast show that
was so long it was broadcast in two parts.

The year ended with a retrospective documentary created by James Runcie,
"J.K. Rowling, A Year in the Life," which was broadcast on December 30
on ITV1.

WARNING: Spoiler alert! Many of the articles and some of
the canon summaries below contain serious spoilers.

Rating

2007

Title & highlights*

Links

Type

January 11, 2007: Rowling finishes writing Book 7 whilst
at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh

The Malfoys did not go to Azkaban after Book 7 because they
colluded with Harry.

The Potters are distantly related to the Peverells, but so
are many wizarding families.

Dumbledore could see Harry beneath the cloak because he could
perform a non-verbal 'Homenum revelio' -

Winky is “still at Hogwarts” and fought in the last
battle.

JKR: “Hermione began her post-Hogwarts career at the Department
for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures where she was
instrumental in greatly improving life for house-elves and their
ilk. She then moved (despite her jibe to Scrimgeour) to the Dept.
of Magical Law Enforcement where she was a progressive voice who
ensured the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws."

Teddy Lupin was raised by his grandmother Andromeda Tonks,
and was very close to his godfather Harry.

After Book 7, Minister Kingsley asked Harry to head up his
new Auror Department.

After Book 7, “Ron joined George at Weasleys' Wizarding
Wheezes, which became an enormous money-spinner.”

After Hogwarts, Ginny played professional Quidditch for the
Holyhead Harpies, then became the Senior Quidditch correspondent
at the Daily Prophet.

The Deathly Hallows were based on 'the Pardoner's Tale' by
Chaucer.

JKR: “Luna became a very famous wizarding naturalist who
discovered and classified many new species of animals (though,
alas, she never did find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack)”

Luna married later in life to Rolf Scamander, a fellow naturalist
and the grandson of Newt Scamander

“In essence divided” was Dumbledore’s theory
that Nagini’s essence was divided - that it contained part
of Voldemort's soul, and that was why it was so very adept at doing
his bidding. This also explained why Harry, the last and unintended
Horcrux, could see so clearly through the snake's eyes, just as
he regularly sees through Voldemort's.

JKR: “When Dudley was attacked by the Dementors he saw
himself, for the first time, as he really was. This was an extremely
painful, but ultimately salutory lesson, and began the transformation
in him.”

JKR: Remus was killed by Dolohov and Tonks by Bellatrix.

Wands work their best for the person the wand chooses, but
will also work fairly well for a family member.

Umbridge was able to conjure a Patronus while wearing the
locket Horcrux because she is so nasty.

JKR: Percy Weasley “ended up as a high-ranking official
under Kingsley.”

JKR: Griphook was wrong - Gryffindor did not 'steal' the
sword.”

Azkaban no longer uses Dementors.

“The Hufflepuff common room is accessed through a [still-life
painting] near the kitchens. It is a very cosy and welcoming place,
as dissimilar as possible from Snape's dungeon. Lots of yellow
hangings, and fat armchairs, and little underground tunnels leading
to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like
barrel tops.”

George Weasley named his first child Fred. He became very
successful businessman.

Dumbledore’s vision in the Mirror of Erised was to see
his family alive, whole and happy - Ariana, Percival and Kendra
all returned to him, and Aberforth reconciled to him.

Jo changed her mind about someone doing magic late in life
when she was writing Book 3.

Wormtail picked Voldemort’s wand up at Godric’s
Hollow and saved it for him.

Tom Riddle would have turned out very different if his mother
had survived and loved him.

Snape is a hero, but a “flawed” one. An anti-hero.

Regulus was able to figure out what Voldemort was doing with
the Horcruxes because Voldemort arrogantly dropped hints about
why he could not be killed.

Lily might have grown to love Snape “if he had not loved
Dark Magic so much.”

The number of Dementors have been greatly diminished because
despair and degradation have been lessened in the world.

Fawkes left Hogwarts when Dumbledore died – like Dumbledore,
he could not be replaced.

Dumbledore understood Mermish, Gobbledegook and Parseltongue.

Lockhart will never recover.

Harry made sure that the Wizarding world knew that Snape
was a hero and on Dumbledore’s side, though Rita Skeeter
probably wrote an expose about him.

Dumbledore gave Ron his Deluminator because he knew Ron would
need guidance.

Dementors do not have souls.

The third thing Hermione smells with Amortentia is the scent
of Ron’s hair.

After Book 7, Slytherin House became more diluted and was
no longer solely pureblood; however its dark reputation lingers.

Snape became a Death Eater because he was “insecure and
vulnerable” and wanted to be a part of something “impressive.”

Snape thought he could have his dark magic friends and Lily
too. He never understood her aversion and thought she would be
impressed.

JKR: “the real Master of Death accepts that he must die,
and that there are much worse things in the world of the living.”

Harry used the Cruciatus Curse because he was in an “extreme
situation” and was so angry to see young children threatened.
He is not a saint.

JKR: “Harry's faults are primarily anger and occasional
arrogance.”

Harry’s son James probably has the Marauder’s map
(but Harry didn’t give it to him).

When Petunia paused at the door as she was leaving she almost
wished him luck and told him that “her loathing of his world,
and of him, was born out of jealousy.” But she couldn’t
do it; she had “hardened” too much.

There are two different memory charms. One wipes memory and
one changes what you remember.

Voldemort could not stop Harry from seeing into his mind
because he was “losing control.”

Viktor Krum fell in love with a woman back home in Bulgaria

Hedwig’s death “represented a loss of innocence
and security” for Harry. It “marked the end of childhood.”

Both Harry and Ron will appear on Chocolate Frogs cards;
this will thrill Ron who “will describe this as his finest
hour.”

JKR won’t tell us what the incantation for Horcrux creation
is.

Snape is the only Death Eater that could produce a Patronus
because “because a Patronus is used against things that the Death
Eaters generally generate, or fight alongside.” (They don’t
need them.)

Nagini could see Harry and Hermione under the Invisibility
Cloak because a snake’s senses are different, especially
relating to heat and movement.

The other two titles JKR considered were Harry Potter and
the Elder Wand and Harry Potter and the Peverell Quest.

JKR would like an otter (like Hermione’s) for a Patronus,
but she thinks she’d get a big dog instead.

Voldemort never figured out that the Resurrection Stone was
in the ring because he did not invoke it properly (simply wearing
it wouldn’t work).

The Death Eater’s Dark Marks will eventually fade to look
like a scar. They will no longer burn or hurt.

The Quibbler is back to publishing articles about the lunatic
fringe “and is appreciated for its unintentional humour.”

Winky has sobered up a bit.

Bellatrix’s true love was always Voldemort, not her husband.

Snape was careful not to reveal his Patronus to other members
of the order.

Voldemort never loved anything except power and himself.

JKR would like to have the same wand as Harry: holly and
phoenix feather.

Members of the DA still have their coins, as they are like
badges of honor (especially for Neville).

Snape got into Grimmauld Place “immediately after Dumbledore's
death, before Moody put up the spells against him.”

JKR chose the lightning shape for Harry’s scar because
it was a “cool” shape.

Marietta’s “SNEAK” pimples left a few scars.

JKR chose King’s Cross for Harry’s place between
life and death because the name worked so well and because “Harry
would associate it with moving on between two worlds.” It
would look different to someone else.

JKR would choose 'I did it my way' by Frank Sinatra for music
at Dumbledore’s funeral.

Jo thought explicit references to Christianity early on in the
story would make the ending too obvious.

JKR: "Hogwarts is a multifaith
school."

The Matthew 6:21 and 1Corintians 15:26
quotations on his parents' gravestones were meant to symbolize "living beyond death.
Living after death." They "sum up" the whole series.

Harry's struggle with questions about the afterlife begins when
Sirius dies.

The two epigrams at the beginning of
Book 7 ("The Libation
Bearers" by Aeschylus and William Penn's "More Fruits
of Solitude") had been planned since book 2 was published: "I
always knew [that] if I could use them at the beginning of book
seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly.... They just say it
all to me...."

Harry's struggle with his beliefs about the afterlife mirrors
her own.

Neville married Hannah Abbott, who eventually became the landlady
at The Leaky Cauldron. His students think this is cool.

Molly was the one to defeat Bellatrix because Jo wanted Molly
to have a chance to show how powerful she is, and because she found
it satisfying to create a face-off between unhealthy obsessive
love and strong maternal love.

Jo decided not to kill Arthur Weasley in Book 5 so that Ron wouldn’t
have to grow up as quickly.

The orphaning of Teddy Lupin brought the series full circle,
though Harry was a much better godfather than Sirius.

Jo says (tongue in cheek) that Aberforth’s inappropriate
goat charm had to do with keeping it clean or its horns curly.

Dumbledore was gay; he fell in love with Gellert Grindelwald
but was “terribly
let down by him” when he realized what Gellert was capable
of.

Parseltongue is not a language that people can learn. Ron really
only memorized the sound of one word ("open").

Dumbledore’s 1981 letter to Petunia was very kind and explained why he
couldn’t let her become part of the Wizarding world and join
her sister at Hogwarts.

Petunia desperately wanted to be a part of the Wizarding world
and hated that “Lily
had what she couldn’t have.”

What Petunia almost said when Harry left Privet Drive for the
last time was “I
do know what you’re up against and I hope it’s OK.” But she
couldn’t say it because she was too hardened by pretending
not to care for so long.

Harry’s Horcrux was not destroyed by the basilisk poison in book2 because
the poison’s damage was stopped in time by Fawkes’ tears.

Dumbledore worried that Harry would give in to his “reckless” impulses
and seek the Deathly Hallows so he gave the book with the clues
to cautious Hermione.

When Harry decided not to seek the Hallows after Dobby died it
scared him because it was the first time he had decided not to
act.

JKR: Portraits can “only move between portraits in the
same building.”

The parallels between Voldemort’s goals and methods and
those of the Nazi Regime were deliberate, but there are also parallels
to regimes that exist today.

JKR: “The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance,
a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry…. You should question
authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the
press tells you all of the truth.”

There is no magic involved in life debts.

After Book 7, Draco Malfoy goes back to “being an improved version of
what he was but we shouldn’t expect him to be a really great
guy any time soon.”

James, Lily and Sirius became full time members of the Order
of the Phoenix after leaving Hogwarts and did not have regular
jobs. They lived off of James’s
money.

The Potters did not go into hiding until Lily became pregnant.

Lupin was “unemployable” when he left Hogwarts; he
fought full time for the Order of the Phoenix.

Voldemort’s first rise to power did not go as far as the
second one did because he was not able to infiltrate the Ministry
the first time.

Hagrid never married. Mme. Maxime was too sophisticated for him,
and there weren’t many other giantesses around.

Severus Snape’s portrait does indeed hang in the Headmaster’s office.
Harry had a role in making sure that Snape’s abdication did
not affect his place there.

Helga Hufflepuff gave the House-elves at Hogwarts "good conditions
of work." Her intent wasn't to be activist, merely to be humane.

The Beedle the Bard story "Wizard and the Hopping Pot" was
used "to teach young wizards and witches that they should
be using their magic altruistically."

The Beedle the Bard story "Fountain of Fair Fortune" taught
wizarding children that "magic ultimately is not the best weapon" to
achieve your heart's desire.

Originally Beedle the Bard was to be around 30 tales, but then
Jo got the idea to hand write them and she did just the five. Jo
chose "horcruxes" as
a plural for Horcrux because Jo didn't want too many words ending
in r-i.

Herpo the Foul created the first Horcrux, but Jo won't say how,
other than that it is a series of actions.

Jo's encyclopedia may not be published for ten years.

Jo named John Dawlish for John Noe. Dawlish had been a powerful
Auror, but was weakened by the time Augusta Longbottom laid into
him.

Augusta Longbottom was a "powerful witch."

Attitudes toward homosexuality in the Wizarding world are pretty
similar to ours. People like Malfoy were more interested in someone's
blood status than their love life.

JKR: "Dumbledore, who was the great defender of Love, and
who sincerely believed that Love was the greatest, most powerful,
force in the universe, was himself made a fool of by Love."

Grindelwald was Dumbledore's "dark twin."

There is no romantic backstory for Madam Hooch.

Harry was technically NOT a Horcrux because there was no intent
to create one. The piece of Voldemort's soul did not make Harry "evil" or "contaminated."

JKR: "The only time he ever felt it [Harry's Horcrux] stirring
and moving was in Order of the Phoenix, when he himself
goes through a very dark time" and the piece of soul enjoyed
it and fed off of it.

The Sorting Hat detected the piece of Voldemort's soul within
Harry.

Official definition of a Horcrux: "the receptacle is prepared
by dark magic to become the receptacle of a fragmented piece of
soul and that that piece of soul deliberately detached from the
Master Soul to act as a future safeguard or anchor to life and
to safeguard against death."

"In essence divided," the scene in Dumbledore's office
where he watches a snake divide, was when the Headmaster was figuring
out about the Horcruxes.

Although the bible verse "The last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death" on James and Lily's grave is the "theme for
the entire series," Jo is not trying to convert her readers
to Christianity.

JKR: "It is perfectly possible to live
a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it's perfectly
possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in
God."

JKR: "I'm opposed to fundamentalism
in any form," she says. "And
that includes in my own religion."

On Wizard rock activism: "It's incredible, it's humbling,
and it's uplifting to see people going out there and doing that
in the name of your character," [...] "What did my books
preach against throughout? Bigotry, violence, struggles for power,
no matter what. All of these things are happening in Darfur. So
they really couldn't have chosen a better cause."

JKR: "He's [Harry's] still mine," she
says. "Many
people may feel that they own him. But he's a very real character
to me, and no one's thought about him more than I have."

On the epilogue: "I kept arguing
that 'love is the most important force, love is the most important
force.' So I wanted to show him loving. Sometimes it's dramatic:
it means you lay down your life. But sometimes it means making
sure someone's trunk is packed and hoping they'll be O.K. at
school."

Jo is currently writing two books:
an adult novel and a "political
fairy tale."

JKR: "If, and it's a big if, I ever
write an eighth book about the [wizarding ] world, I doubt that
Harry would be the central character," she says. "I feel
like I've already told his story. But these are big ifs. Let's
give it 10 years and see how we feel then."

JKR chose the people who came to walk with Harry in the forest
as he was going to his death because they were in some way were
parental for him, or gave up their lives for him.

Having Harry's blood in him was a bit
of "goodness" for
Voldemort, and gave him one last chance. If he had repented he
would have been healed to a remarkable extent.

Voldemort's Avada Kedavra succeeded
in "killing the part
of him that is not truly him, in other words, the fragment of Voldemort's
own soul that is still clinging to his. The curse also disables
Harry severely enough that he could have succumbed to death if
he had chosen that path."

Harry was right to feel repulsed by the baby-like remains of
Voldemort's shattered soul.

What did Dumbledore really see in the Mirror of Erised?
JKR: "His family, alive and whole and reconciled."

Harry and Voldemort are distantly related
through the Peverells, but you could say the same about Harry and
most other wizarding families.

Pansy Parkinson is the "anti-Hermione," the
personification of all the girls who teased Jo in school.

Draco married Asteria Greengrass, the younger
sister of Daphne. Asteria was two years behind Draco at Hogwarts.

The Love Room in the Department of Mysteries
contains a fountain in the center of the room full of a powerful
love potion. Wizards and witches take the potion to study its effects.

One "thread" in the books
is what love does to people. It can make people heroic (Lily,
Harry, Neville), it can also lead them into foolishness and evil
(Bellatrix and Dumbledore).

Bellatrix was sexually obsessed with Voldemort.

Not all Slytherins are bad.

Jo is very involved in the planning of the
theme park. It will have the "Jo touch."

Florean Fortescue was killed; there was more to him than was
revealed in the books.

Hagrid did not create Thestrals, he only bred the ones living
at Hogwarts. He did breed the Skrewts.

Wands are "quasi-sentient" because
they carry so much magic.

Wands they develop an affinity ("loyalty")
for the wizards who bear them. Disarming someone in an informal
duel may not affect this, but if won in a duelling battle, the
wand will switch allegiance. The exception is the "unsentimental"
Elder Wand which "knows
no loyalty except to strength."